Page 60 of One Second After Another

The little scrunch of his nose said the almost six-year-old didn’t like that answer at all.

“Back?” she heard Naz ask.

Luca let out a sigh. “There are still some things to explain, man.”

“That so?”

“Naz—”

“I get it, Luca.”

He sounded like he did. It was also entirely possible to understand a situation and be pissed off about it, too. Penny and little Cross watched the exchange, but her attention drifted to the quiet woman watching from further away.

Roz didn’t come as close as Naz had—she wasn’t crying, but the water hadn’t left her gaze, either. There was pain in her stare, but also joy. It dripped from the warm, motherly smile that curved Roz’s lips the longer the two watched one another.

“Hey, Roz,” Penny whispered.

She stood; little Cross let her go, but didn’t move away. Roz, on the other hand, didn’t move a muscle. Even when she replied, “Hey, Penny. A few years really ... grew you up, didn’t it?”

Penny laughed, not expecting that. “Something like that.”

In the same black cargo pants and crop top that she had been wearing the day before, Penny was sure she didn’t look at all like the image of the young teenager that Roz had tried to save. She wasn’t that girl anymore—this woman was someone else entirely. It was unfortunate that the woman who inspired Penny to find happiness so long ago hadn’t been able to watch her transition into this person she became, but she hoped Roz would still love her the way she had when she needed it the most.

Because she still needed it. To love was human.

Penny had never been loved until these people—now she loved them entirely too much. She realized that only made her need their love, too.

Maybe that was why she told Roz, “Staying away was easy when I didn’t have time to think about what I did when I left—I’m sorry I did it that way. I’m sorry I left without telling you why. You deserved better than that. I loved you more than that.”

Roz blinked, and the tears fell. “It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

Because she didn’t think so.

“I just want a hug, Penny,” Roz said, smiling in that way of hers again. The way that made everything okay. “Can I have a hug?”

How could she say no?

16.

Luca

“MA said there’s a pool,” his godson said as Luca guided him beyond the front door of the lodge.

Naz walked ahead of his son, replying to the boy before Luca could say a thing, “And I told you that we weren’t staying long enough to swim, my dude.”

Cross sighed.

How did so much attitude fit into such a small human?

He kind of loved it.

At the same time, Luca was also too distracted with the scene they had left out in the driveway to really focus on the conversation happening between Cross and Naz. He reached for the door to close it, unaware that his friend was watching him as he took one last glance at Roz and Penny still locked in each other’s embrace.

His sister had started crying, and Naz nodded toward the door. Luca got the hint, and pulled his nephew away from the two women to let them have their moment in private. And yet, even as he felt like he was intruding by watching them for another few seconds, he couldn’t help himself.

Roz had waited a long time for this, but so had Penny. He didn’t think people realized that—as confused and lonely and abandoned that they had felt for years, so had she. Just in her own ways.